South Africa.Fort Beaufort · a farmer and a policeman shoot at a light

On the morning of June 26, 1972, at Braeside farm near Fort Beaufort (Eastern Cape, South Africa), at about 9 a.m., a farm laborer reported smoke near a krans (cliff) and a "ball of fire". According to the account of the owner, farmer Bennie Smit, published by the APRO Bulletin from South African press clippings, it was a fiery ball about two and a half feet (some 75 cm) across, hovering at treetop height with flames shooting out; it moved sideways about 300 yards, left a smoke trail and changed from red to green to yellowish-white. Smit went back to the house for his .303 rifle, phoned the police and fired several shots; he said he was sure his eighth shot hit it, because he heard a thud.

At about 10 a.m. Warrant Officer P.R. van Rensburg, the Fort Beaufort station commander, and Sgt. P. Kitching arrived. According to van Rensburg, after Smit and Kitching had fired, they saw a round, black, shiny object about two and a half feet across emerge from behind a tree, disappearing and reappearing; shots had no effect and it shied away behind the bushes when anybody approached. According to the APRO Bulletin, Smit moved into the thick bush carrying a stick with a white handkerchief tied to it, so that the police could keep track of his movements. He later saw it about 20 yards away, grayish-white, fired two more quick shots and the object, with a loud whirring noise, veered off over the treetops, cutting a pathway through the foliage.

Smit told APRO's representative that the object seemed to respond to the human voice and the proximity of people, that it left no burned traces although it had been a ball of fire close to foliage, that the trees and bushes parted as it sped away, with no air blast causing it, that it was seen for almost four hours, and that his dog, his constant companion, was missing during the sighting. Later accounts describe it as a 200-liter metal drum of dark gunmetal gray and add that six Fort Beaufort town councillors followed the episode through binoculars; the APRO Bulletin does not mention them.

A physical trace was left on the ground, on the farm about 9 miles out of Fort Beaufort. According to the Pretoria News of July 5, quoted by APRO, C. S. Kingsley, a geology lecturer at Fort Hare University (and the government geologist on the 1967 Antarctic expedition), said the imprints at Braeside farm were "definitely not animal or human": fine parallel streaks suggested metal, the imprints were round, 10 mm deep at the center and shallower toward the edge, as if made by a spherical object (the bulletin adds that various ridges arranged about the imprint indicate the artificiality of the object that made it), and the clay was so hard that, according to what van Rensburg told Kingsley, the policemen's boots barely left a mark. Later accounts speak of nine imprints arranged like landing gear. Smit was asked to send clay samples by train to Pretoria for analysis, but (according to the account that circulated in the press) the samples were lost in transit and never reached the capital.

The story drew international press coverage. According to Wikipedia, a rumor circulated that the Grahamstown army regiment investigated the site but could not produce any records. Wikipedia dates the event to June 26, 1971; the 1972 APRO Bulletin, which gathers South African press clippings on that year's flap, places it on June 26, 1972, and the same Wikipedia article cites a New Scientist editorial of August 3, 1972 on the episode.

The event brings together a farmer, a warrant officer and a police sergeant who said they saw an object that was fired at, and imprints in the ground that a university geologist said were not animal or human. What is known of the object comes from what Smit and van Rensburg told the South African press, which APRO reproduced; the six councillors, the metal drum and the nine imprints like landing gear appear only in later accounts.

The linked sources mention no radar or other instrument record and no formal military report, and none proposes what the object was.